June 12 — Day 1 on the Camino (From Virgins to Vehicles)
Leaving our luxurious accommodations at the Parador de Baiona, we descended into the narrow streets of the town, making a slight detour to view a site of religiohistorical interest. The Capilla de Santa Liberata marked a somber start to our Camino experience. Legend has it that the wife of Lucio Catelo (Lucius Catellus,) prefect of Roman Galicia, bore 9 female offspring in a single birth. Concerned that such an extraordinary number might suggest that he was not the sole father, Catelo ordered their deaths. The midwife was to carry out their murders, but her conscience would not allow her to do so and, instead, parceled them out to various Christian families in the area, who raised them to adulthood. Their existence was made known during the extreme persecution of Christians by Roman officials in the 2nd Century, at which time, their physical similarity to each other and to their mother left Catelo with no doubt as to their true identity, and promptly ordered them beheaded, along with the unfaithful midwife.
The nine managed to escape but eight were soon captured and executed after refusing to renounce their Christian faith. One of the siblings, Liberata, was able to hide herself in the forest for some time, but, refusing the sexual advances of her captors upon her discovery, was turned over to the Roman officials and crucified, purportedly the first Christian female to be executed using that method. The chapel is dedicated to all nine martyrs, and named for their longest surviving member, who was sanctified in 1251.
Returning to the Rua do Conde, we encountered our first brass scallop shell imbedded in the roadway and commemorated it as our official starting point. Thus began our 6-mile walk to Nigran, a purposely brief first day that allowed us to calculate our pace and correct any technical errors. As the path was entirely paved, many chose to wear athletic shoes or sandals and defer wearing boots until the trail conditions demanded them.
The Ponte Romana Sabaris crosses the Minor River in La Ramallosa. Constructed in the 13th century at the site of an ancient Roman bridge, it was reinforced in 1926, but still retains its original form, characteristic of the transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic, and is still used for vehicular traffic. Its narrowness requires that drivers at opposite ends communicate which holds right of way.
With record-warm temperatures and the high humidity typical of the region, our remaining walk into Nigran was mercifully brief and not excessively taxing on our still-fresh legs. Sunny skies made for startlingly beautiful vistas of the Vigo Estuary, as well as sticky clothing, whose purported wicking properties were incapable of handling the Galician humidity.
